Learning to Govern the Bill Bradley Way

By CLIFFORD D. MAY

Published: March 1, 1988

WASHINGTON—
It seems very long ago that a 34-year-old former basketball star named Bill Bradley began a second career as a New Jersey politician.

At the time, many leaders of the state's Democratic Party, while glad to have someone with Mr. Bradley's name recognition on their side, did not approve of his going straight for a Senate seat rather than working his way up with a run for the House of Representatives or some other position.

Other New Jerseyans called Mr. Bradley a carpetbagger - he was born in Missouri and played basketball for the New York Knicks after all - and even some of the state's sharpest political eyes did not see much potential in the big jock with the monotone voice.

Yet now, after less than a decade in office, Senator Bradley has so pleased his fans and overwhelmed his critics that he is viewed as New Jersey's invincible politician. 'Put Us on the Map'

''His popularity is enormous,'' said Alan Rosenthal, director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers. ''And I say that as a relatively late convert. I voted against him in the primary.''

''He brought new pride to the state,'' said Bob Franks, New Jersey's Republican Party chairman. ''He's put us on the map.'' Finding someone to oppose Mr. Bradley when he comes up for re-election in 1990, Mr. Franks acknowledged, will not be easy.

Of course, there remains the longshot chance - inevitably raised in conversations about Mr. Bradley in New Jersey and in Washington - that a year from now he will have moved into the White House.

That could happen, some political analysts believe, if no clear winner emerges from the primaries and if, as a result, delegates to the Democratic Party convention this summer deadlock.

But many Bradley-watchers consider it entirely possible that the Senator would refuse even an 11th-hour draft. Unlike the Democratic Party's other reluctant bridegrooms, Mr. Bradley has not been saying merely that he does not not want to run for President right now - he has been saying that he does not want to be President right now.

Mr. Bradley seems to have a vision of himself and of where he is headed that is not much influenced by the reflections in other people's eyes. Looking Out For Jersey Interests

Upon first arriving in Washington, Senator Bradley, now 44 years old, was very much the advocate of his home state's interests, devoting his attentions to such chores as establishing a television station in New Jersey, preventing Fort Dix from closing, blocking offshore oil drilling, winning funds for mass transit and a cleanup of toxic waste dumps. Despite his rise to national prominence, he is careful to emphasize that he has not changed much.

''Here's what's on my agenda in terms of New Jersey and nationally,'' he said, employing a favorite phrase. ''I'll be continuing my work on U.S.-Soviet relations through the Intelligence Committee and a wide variety of sources.''

In addition to the Soviet Union, which he recently visited for the fourth time since college, he studies Japan and Mexico in the conviction that relations with these nations will be important to the United States for the foreseeable future. He has also spent time on Central America, originally opposing sending weapons and ammunition to the contras, later supporting such aid and last month coming out again against giving them guns.

His shifts have angered liberals and conservatives in turn. But he has maintained that his intention has been not to veer left or right but to steer carefully toward a negotiated resolution of the chronic conflict.

''I kind of work through issues,'' he said. ''I take a subject and essentially learn it, think about how it works, what needs to be done and come up with ideas and fight for those ideas.''

''I did that with energy,'' he added, referring to work he did on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, ''then with tax reform - that was a four-year effort. It's not simply studying ideas, ideas separated from action. The legislative process is a matter of combining the two, of making ideas happen.

''Then there's third world debt,'' he said, terming that ''a time bomb.''

''Then in Finance,'' he said, referring to another Senate committee on which he serves, ''I'll do home health care for the elderly. That's enormously important for New Jersey and nationally.'' Mr. Bradley also serves on the Special Committee on Aging.

Welfare reform is yet another item on his list - he supports the bill written by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York' - as is cleaning up New Jersey's coastal waters and beaches, which last summer were littered with hospital waste. He tosses out an idea about using satellites to catch those who illegally dump trash in the ocean. The proposal sounds far-fetched but he has an explanation about the technology to detect changes in water temperature where garbage has been released.

Next comes education: He wants new initiatives aimed at high school dropouts and at gifted and talented students, both of which, he notes, are plentiful in New Jersey and nationally.